


Unspoken

by LearnedFoot



Series: Nebula! [6]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Horror, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/background Thor/Rocket, M/M, Minor Groot, Minor Peter Quill, minor Thor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-27 04:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/pseuds/LearnedFoot
Summary: Five times Nebula and Rocket don’t talk about it.





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).

> You had such a delightful selection of characters to choose from, it was hard to pick what to write! But I had so much fun with this, and I hope you do, too.
> 
> Happy Trick or Treat!

**1.**

The tendons in Nebula’s neck snap, popping one after another as her arm is torn from her body. Unbearable, and yet she bares it. Then comes the sharp prick of wires threading down her veins, each one distinct, slithering through her body, deep, to her heart, foreign and unwanted and permanent. 

She opens her eyes and is greeted by a void: darkness that goes beyond black, so empty it swallows her screams to nothing. No one can hear, no one is coming. She screams anyway.

*

Suddenly, from nothing, the pain is gone, and her voice is back, shouts echoing off the walls of a cavern, mixing with animal groans and grunts. It takes her a moment, hands and knees distrustful of the hard rock beneath them, to remember. That—the agony, body undone and recreated—was the past. This is now. She looks to her left and sees Rocket curled in a ball, whimpering unhappily.

She sucks in sour air and waits for him to say what they’re both thinking, so she does not have to.

“So this thing Captain Shiny-Fists sent us after,” he grumbles, unrolling and crawling unsteadily to his feet. “How important did she say it was?”

Nebula rises from the ground, scraping mud from her palms. She observes the space that flung them into nightmares: open cave at first glance, but now that she looks more closely she can make out the slight glean of a force field. Protection, obviously, though unlike any security she has heard of. Perhaps it is a spell. 

“She barely thought it was worth the detour,” she says, which slightly overstates the case, but not by much. “Just a rumor to follow. I believe her words were ‘explore the possibility.’”

“I don’t know about you, but I feel like we’ve explored. I’m feeling real explored out.” Rocket is eyeing the force field, too, nose twitching. “What’da say, Blue? Think we’ve explored?”

“Yes,” Nebula agrees. “I think we’ve explored.”

As they return to their ship, neither asks if the other wants to talk about it. They already know the answer.

**2.**

The worst part of the trash ship is not that they’ve wasted time on useless garbage, it’s that some of the useless garbage is electric, still humming along, an inconvenience Nebula learns about the unpleasant way when she is shocked by a broken communication device. Pain flares up her arm, over almost before it starts. She represses a shout and puts the device back down.

Rocket does not need to know she made such a careless mistake. Five years of partnership, and he would still mock her ruthlessly if he found out.

*

But momentary pain turns into extended annoyance, and by the time they get back to their ship she knows something is seriously wrong. She ignores the stiffening along her wrist, the ache in her shoulder, but she can’t ignore when her arm starts giving off sparks, metal fingers spasming involuntarily. 

“Is that supposed to do that?” Rocket asks nonchalantly as Nebula considers the damage.

She glares at him and doesn’t respond. Her first instinct is to retreat to her quarters to repair herself, but Rocket is blinking at her sarcastically, a challenge. She had not always known blinking could convey so much, but now she can read every twitch and growl, each flick of the tail and narrowing of the eye. Sometimes she thinks it would be easier if she couldn’t. 

Wordlessly, she rummages in the toolkit she keeps under her chair until she finds the proper instrument. What does it matter if he watches? She does not have anything to hide.

That is wrong, she quickly realizes. She still has dignity to maintain, and she’s losing it by the second. The shock worked its way up her shoulder, fusing wires together at an awkward angle. She can fix it, of course, has fixed much worse—shattered bones and melted metal, entire chunks of her body turned offline—but it is not elegant. She’s forced to contort and poke, hissing to herself as she misses the mark, pricking her skin with the sharp knife that is meant to disconnect the wires. Blood bubbles and bursts, dripping, dark, down her arm. She can feel Rocket’s judgement without looking at him.

Out of nowhere, sharp nails scamper up her body, and two small paws rest on her hand.

“This is ridiculous,” Rocket says gruffly. “You’re doing it wrong. And what even is this?” he adds, pulling the tool out of her hand and glaring at it. “Did you get it at a scrapyard? Inherit it from your grandpa?” He tosses it to the side, ignoring as it clatters along the floor. He pulls another from his own pocket: similar, but more delicate, precise, advanced. It is better. “Let me show you how an expert does it. You’re embarrassing.”

Their eyes meet, and there is no sarcasm in his anymore, only sympathy. Nebula wonders why he already has that tool on him, but she does not ask. She does not say thank you, either.

But she does nod, and extend her arm. Perhaps that is enough.

**3.**

Nebula stands across from herself, a distorted echo, limp and broken.

What do you do with your own body?

It does not feel right to leave her, but she recoils from touching this lifeless shell of herself, the her she could not save. The her that did not have a chance to escape her father, the her whose future she has stolen.

It does not feel right to leave her, but she leaves her. She cannot face any other option. There’s a battle to clean up after. There are people to mourn—people who deserve mourning far more than she. 

Let herself sink into the mud of the battlefield. It is all she deserves.

*

As they are preparing to leave Earth, Rocket hands her a nondescript wooden box, filled with ash.

“Thought you might want this,” is all he says.

But he stands at her side as she scatters the ashes over the sea of New Asgard, small paw slipping into her hand as the waves carry away the version of herself she used to be.

**4.**

Nebula notices before the others do: the way Rocket relaxes when Thor walks into the room, sarcastic quips going soft around the edges. Not the barbed sibling mocking he inflicts on the rest of the team, more like teasing.

It is what Gamora once described to her as “flirtation.”

She notices also when they start huddling in a corner, playing a complicated Asgardian card game. It can be played by more than two, but Rocket insists it’s “too complicated for you morons to handle,” tail whipping in warning when Quill insists he’s a card master who would kick their butts if they let him.

Nebula has liked games ever since Stark taught her the one with the folded paper. She gathered them on Earth, asking each Avenger to share their favorites, and after that the most challenging, and finally any they could think of, collecting rules like trophies. She offers to teach Quill Spades; he can never resist a chance to learn more about his home world, even if he pretends he does not care.

“It’s because God of Boasting over there is scared I’ll embarrass him on his own turf,” Quill insists as he allows himself to be led away. “Not that I care, obviously. It’s not important. Your game sounds better anyway.”

“Yes, I am sure you would win,” Nebula assures him, shooting Rocket a smile over her shoulder. She’s met by the slightest rise of his ears: a thank you, loud and clear.

*

Of course it is Groot who notices next, the third time the god and the raccoon disappear after a mission, only to stumble back hours later, drunk and singing Asgardian drinking songs or melodies they picked up on Earth.

“I am Groot?” he asks, sitting next to Nebula, who is busy sorting stores for their next journey. They watch the two idiots bumble onto the ship, slurring their way through a tune Nebula thinks she recognizes from Captain Rogers’ record collection.

“I believe so,” she confirms. “I have not asked.” She watches as Thor picks Rocket up, ruffling his fur. Rocket squirms and protests, but he laughs through it. Five years, and she never once saw him laugh like that. “I think we should let them tell us when they are ready.”

Groot considers this, then nods. “I am _Groot_.”

“Yes,” Nebula agrees. “Quill is not going to like this at all.”

**5.**

If Nebula believed in inevitability, she would think it was inevitable they ended up back at this cave. But she does not—she is not her father—so instead she sees it as a dark joke.

Sometimes she thinks the universe enjoys laughing at her.

They know more, now. Behind that force field isn’t a rumor, it’s a payday that will change their lives, forever. And they are ready, this time, for what they face.

“It’s just a magical shield that mines your memories for the worst things that have ever happened to you,” Quill says with bravado so false it would be funny in another situation. “How bad can it be?"

They link hands, one after another. Rocket’s little paw, stiff and leathery, is warm against the flesh of Nebula’s right hand. Quill takes her left. The rough bark of Groot’s growing tendrils wraps around her waist, his vines extending down the line, linking them together.

“The power of friendship,” Thor comments cheerfully, so earnest Nebula can’t find it in herself to find the line cheesy.

“Just stay focused on what you can feel,” Quill reminds them, less because anyone needs reminding than because he wants the last word. “Stay focused on what’s real. And keep moving forward.”

*

They step into the nightmare, and Nebula is ripped apart again: skin pulled back from her face, eye plucked out, searing pain dipping its fingers into her brain, into her lungs, into her heart—

And then little nails dig into her palm. The pain of it is nothing compared to organs undone, scooped out of her body and replaced by metal, but it is clearer, sharper. Real.

_Keep moving forward _she reminds herself, and though she has no body in this dark void, she does: steps forward, out of the pain, into the dull light of the cave. In this moment, it feels like sunshine. Around her, her companions gasp for air, shocked and trembling. Quill has tears in his eyes.

But Rocket’s paw stays in hers, and when their gaze meets, he cocks his head, triumphant. 


End file.
